Challenges to academic publishing

Challenges to academic publishing from the demand for instant open access to research

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Introduction:

Academic publishing is facing major challenges on two fronts. One of these relates to the relative ease of publishing ‘on line’ compared with the historic barriers to establishing print-based journals in the pre-internet age. The other front concerns a shift towards ‘open-access’ publishing, driven both by user expectations and funding body preferences. Neither of these issues should be considered as inherently bad developments and both are underpinned by the information revolution that allows a substantial and growing proportion of the world’s population to draw upon a vast resource base connected through the internet, and indeed to share their own ideas with the world in a way that might have seemed fantastic a few decades ago. The present article assumes that these developments – ready access to information and open access to publishing opportunities – are (subject to a few provisos) to be welcomed. However, even positive changes may have unforeseen complications, and academic publishers are having to reconsider traditional models of publication in the ‘internet’ age.

Contents:

The information revolution
The promiscuous nature of the information explosion
The challenge of new academic journals
Peer review and article revision
Immediate publication in electronic journals
Risks to quality control
Who pays for publication?
The future of academic journal publishing

Download the English text of the article here.